


Broken Glass: Part Two – Opaque

by motsureru



Series: Broken Glass [2]
Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Awkwardness, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Law Enforcement, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-05
Updated: 2007-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motsureru/pseuds/motsureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for all of Season 1. This is a continuation after Season 1, Sylar/Mohinder-centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Glass: Part Two – Opaque

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [hugh](http://hugh.livejournal.com) and [sixth_light](http://sixth_light.livejournal.com), my lovely betas

**Teaser:** _Sylar was the pin prickles up the back of one’s neck when you knew you were being watched and operated on with a gaze. His eyes carefully peeled back your skin while his hands delved into your internal organs and turned them over curiously between bloody fingertips, testing their texture and durability._

 

.2Opaque

 

There’s a way to tell when one is falling. When the battle of control over one’s thoughts, one’s emotions, simply becomes too overwhelming for any one man to bear. It’s rather subtle, rather insignificant at first. Thinking, reflecting, staring oneself down in the mirror searching relentlessly for answers. It’s easily unnoticeable then- to find yourself slipping and before you know it- you’re being drawn inexorably into the depth of inner monologue. You’re falling. So far gone are you that you don’t even take the time to notice that the mirror you see yourself in is made of broken glass. It shatters so quietly, you don’t even realize that when you look in the mirror again, your reflection is wholly different.

 

 

The taxi ride back to the hospital was not as devastating as the first, but a million times more grueling. But even as Mohinder found himself breathing uneasily, struggling to control a heartbeat that wouldn’t be kept under wraps, he was, for once, not even thinking about his father. The taxi was merely a means to take him to a more terrible end- Mercy GeneralHospital held no mercy for him. He didn’t see Sylar in this car; he saw him in white hallways, standing at the ends with a river of blood that drew strength from the soles of his feet. Sylar would soak in crimson, innocent people he would-

But hadn’t Sylar feared that? Hurting innocent people? Mohinder shook away such a thought. Sylar was a murderer, plain and simple, even if all this didn’t feel simple in the slightest. When the taxi came to an abrupt halt by the ER of the hospital, Mohinder carelessly threw a large bill in the driver’s direction and ran out. The man’s life had been saved tonight. He could use the change.

For the second time tonight, Mohinder’s footsteps took him through the battered emergency room doors, and he found himself at the front desk, hands clenching the edge and body swaying uneasily. 

“Yes, yes I am Mohinder Suresh. You called me about identifying a stab wound victim.” 

“Of course, sir, let me see here.” The woman behind the desk began to flip through a log slowly for the entry. She did so with such a calm air, such a relaxed ease… Didn’t she know there was a murderer here? He wanted to shake her and tell her to hurry, for God’s sake! “-Room 134. If you would wait there, I’ll page the doctor, and he’ll be in shortly.” She sounded almost disinterested. 

“Thank you.” Mohinder turned and headed down the hall like it was his own home that had been invaded, infiltrated. He was going to kill the perpetrator.

In his head Mohinder ran through all the ways he could kill Sylar before he did any harm. He could strangle him rather easily before the doctor came- no, that was too vicious. He could suffocate Sylar with a pillow- it would be as if he simply never woke up from surgery. But wasn’t that suspicious? He could shoot air into his blood with a syringe- it would be like a heart attack, unpredictable and undetectable— _Good lord, Mohinder. Listen to yourself._ When had he become a killer too? When did he begin to slip into that skin with such ease? Pulling the trigger the first time had been so much more difficult than he let on.

The number 134 snuck up on him so fast that Mohinder nearly passed it. He almost walked away without even knowing. A shiver brought goosebumps to his flesh and he clenched his jaw in preparation. His hand reached out and gripped the handle. When he looked at the chart on the door, it had no name listed. No ‘Sylar.’ He pushed open the door with a turn of the cold metal piece.

Blood. In Mohinder’s eyes there was blood, there was destruction, there was a man standing in white hospital robes tipped with crimson, people pinned against the wall by his mind, an overturned IV-

 

Beep. Beep. Beep.

 

There was a man lying quietly in bed, covers up to his chest and mouth covered with an oxygen mask. His eyes were closed, though a little sunken in and ringed with dark color, his hair disheveled, and the stubble lining his strong jaw a stark contrast to the pale of his skin. He wore a patterned hospital robe of most offensive sky-colored polka dots, and, at the moment, Sylar seemed nothing short of pathetic. Mohinder was taken aback by the sight. He seemed as human as Zane Taylor had appeared.

With carefully slow footsteps, Mohinder approached the body, watching the subtle rise and fall of Sylar’s chest, listening to how it coordinated with the intrusive tone of the heart monitor. Something almost akin to sympathy leaked across his face, and Mohinder’s feet brought him to the side of the bed, fingers wrapping around the handles of the edge. Sylar’s eyelids weren’t even twitching with REM. He was utterly, utterly helpless. A feeble body fed by a potent mind, a mind that was most likely the only thing allowing him to hang on... Mohinder lifted a hand and brought it slowly towards that face, unthinkingly towards the oxygen mask-

“He should be fine,” a strong voice interrupted. 

Mohinder spun around as if he had been electrocuted, eyes wide and hands behind him, gripping to the plastic bed handles. “I wasn’t concerned!” he exclaimed in nervous response. An awkward pause passed between himself and the doctor in white.

The professional who stood in the doorway was a reasonably good-looking man, in his early forties perhaps. He looked fresh and alert for this hour- the midnight shift had probably gone on call only a short while ago. “…Right. My name is Doctor Howell. Your friend appears to have suffered lacerations to his internal organs from what appears to be a very clean stab wound…” the doctor began, taking the chart from around the door and examining it briefly as he entered. “I’m not sure of the circumstances behind this… we operated immediately when he arrived, but there was no weapon present at the scene, according to the EMS who brought him in… certainly nothing apparently long enough to stab him right through front to back. The good news, however, is that he’s out of critical condition.”

“Who called it in?” Mohinder asked abruptly.

The doctor raised an eyebrow at the tenseness in the dark man’s voice. “It was anonymous. EMS thought some kids out late might have stumbled across the body. It’s good the call came in when it did- he couldn’t have stood much more blood loss than he already endured, even if the lacerations weren’t that severe.”

A confused expression touched Mohinder’s face, his brows knitting together. “Not _severe_? He was stabbed right through!” Mohinder declared the obvious, seeing no other word than ‘severe’ to describe what had been inflicted on Sylar. Just what sort of problems did New York City hospitals deal with?

“Well… several major organs were struck, definitely, but the cuts didn’t get that deep, oddly enough. It’s as though the object breezed right past them instead of piercing.” The doctor shrugged, showing he could explain it no other way. “To be honest, our biggest concern at the moment is whether or not he’s suffered any nerve damage. The wound grazed his spinal column, and if he’s unlucky he’ll suffer some form of paralysis as a result. We won’t know until he’s conscious.”

Mohinder found himself turning to stare at the face behind the mask. Sylar certainly looked half dead. Paralysis of the body for a monster who used his mind to kill others. What sort of irony was that?

“And you, Mr. ….” the doctor checked his chart for the unknown variable. “Suresh. Can you identify this man for us so we can contact his next of kin?”

“-What?” Mohinder drew his eyes up and back to the man.

A somewhat weary look in return. “His name. We will need his name.”

“I-…” He couldn’t very well say ‘Sylar,’ could he? It probably wasn’t even a real name. It was the brand of a sociopath. Zane Taylor? “I’m afraid I don’t know it,” Mohinder replied with a small shake of his head and a guilty look.

The doctor raised his eyebrow at that. “He has your home phone number in his pocket but you don’t know his name?” the man questioned with a certain suspicion.

Mohinder needed a lie, and a fast one at that. “I-we met at a bar. We talked for several hours, and exchanged numbers.”

“And never once asked the other’s name?”

“I’m afraid it wasn’t the type of bar where one exchanges names,” Mohinder blurted suddenly, feeling his face grow hot.

That earned both eyebrows raised on the doctor’s part, and his eyes traveled up and away, head tilting back as he comprehended that and decided to dismiss it immediately. “I…. see.”

Mohinder mentally kicked himself, feeling a blush on his dark skin that traveled up to his ears and around the back of his neck. Not only did this doctor think him suspicious, but now he was sure Mohinder was a flaming homosexual as well. Just perfect.  
“Look, Doctor…”

“Howell.”

“Yes, Doctor Howell… would it be alright if I stay here with him until he wakes up?”

A slight frown and the clearing of his throat announced his thought process. Hesitant, but rather hoping to be out of gay’s way as soon as possible. “I don’t see why not… it’s not as if he has anyone else coming to speak of. He should be out for the next few hours, at least, while the anesthetics wear off. I’ll let the nurses know you’re sitting in.” The doctor nodded, making a few marks on the chart in his hands and then heading out the door.

“Thank you…” Mohinder’s words echoed emptily, the gratefulness an uneasy lie. When the door shut behind the doctor, Mohinder found himself once again alone with disaster. But he was neither grabbing for syringes nor pillows, merely a chair. Mohinder sat at Sylar’s side.

 

Beep. Beep. Beep.

 

The man reached up and rubbed his tired eyes, then his chin, reveling unconsciously in the smoothness of a fresh shave. It took a moment for him to realize he didn’t particularly have a few hours to play baby-sitter for the injured serial killer without a call or two, or the luxury of leaving others at his mercy if he woke. Mohinder reached over for the phone at the bedside and punched 9 for the outside line. Then he called his own cell phone number, the device still buried in the jacket he had left with Molly.

Several rings and a muffled, sleepy voice later- “H-Hello…?”

“Molly, it’s me, Mohinder. I’m sorry I woke you. Can you please give the phone to Mrs. Sanders?”

“Are you coming back, Mohinder…?” she asked through a yawn.

“Not tonight, I think. I would like you to stay with Mrs. Sanders and be a good girl. She will take excellent care of you,” he promised with a small smile to himself. Some day he’d like children, he thought. But he was terrified of turning his children into himself, though he couldn’t admit as such out loud.

There was a shuffle of hands on the other end of the line. “Mohinder?” came the calm voice of Niki on the other end.

“Yes, Niki, I’m sorry to ask this of you- you must think terribly of me. But my apartment is really in no situation to house a small child… The last time I was in it, Sylar—”

“I can take her. Don’t worry about it. You’ll just owe me,” she replied, not missing a beat. Mothers always knew.

Mohinder swallowed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what ‘owing’ a woman like Niki Sanders entailed. “Ah… yes. I am in your debt. Please just give me a day or two to clean up my apartment… talk with Mr. Bennet about where Molly should be.”

“Gotcha. I’ll keep this phone if you need to call us,” she said almost... professionally.

“Thank you very much. May I please speak to Molly before I go?”

Another shuffle. “I’m having a slumber party?” the young girl’s voice asked when the phone was in her grasp again.

Mohinder found that Molly never stopped making smiles come to his face. She put his heart at ease when he felt it was at its darkest. “Yes, for a night or two. Keep my phone and call me if you need me for anything, alright?”

“Okay. Good night Mohinder. Don’t have bad dreams anymore, okay?”

“I won’t. I promise. Good night, Molly.” He hung up the phone, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d held. No nightmares tonight. But were dreams of Zane Taylor nightmares? 

Mohinder let his brown eyes settle on the figure in bed.

Sylar.

He’s a man who knows how things work.

But by the time you realize his gaze is on you, it’s already too late. He’s already dissected your mind, your heart, your body, and uncovered everything you have to offer. Made known to him your every flaw and tick. Memorized the tiniest of inflections in your mannerisms. Mohinder felt it for the first time, truly, when he’d left Sylar duct-taped to his living room chair, facing him, unfortunately, while he typed away at his laptop and buried himself in his father’s research with a fresh sample of Patient Zero. Patient Zero, a man with telekinetic abilities whose true power Chandra Suresh had overlooked and dismissed. Mohinder could have never known. He didn’t know; he could only feel it.

Sylar was the pin prickles up the back of one’s neck when you knew you were being watched and operated on with a gaze. His eyes carefully peeled back your skin while his hands delved into your internal organs and turned them over curiously between bloody fingertips, testing their texture and durability. And when he was ready he would squeeze those body parts between the webs of his fingers, letting the blood ooze slowly, and smile like a twisted child crushing a kitten.

Mohinder had never felt so violated by a look before in all his life.

 

Taking a deep breath, Mohinder slid his hands over his face and closed his eyes. It was some perverted chance that brought them together once, but he was sure that fate did not work so serendipitously the second time around. There were some very long hours ahead of him.

Beep. Beep. Beep.  
   



End file.
